D27: 正定 → 正定

October 22, 2024

Trying to set up a reflecting pond scene at Magic Hour while I beg to be allowed to leave for the hotel before it gets dark

In the morning I discovered that the Road Gods had looked upon yesterday afternoon's request for a flat tire, saw that it was a good request, and granted it.

One of my patches didn't like me letting all the air out of the tire and then reinflating it to max PSI, and sometime overnight the slow leak caused by the patch coming loose meant an almost empty tire in the morning.

Because slow leaks mean that there's still a little bit of air in the tire, they also make the act of getting the tire off a total bitch. Unseating a tire with just a little bit of air in it is how, on the last day with Dr. M, I managed to snap one of my plastic tire irons.

Taking video of me getting ready in the morning

It's not even like they were facing the part of the hall Housekeeping was trying to use

Watching them forget to tell Housekeeping that she didn't need to keep hiding in one of the other rooms so that she wouldn't get in their way while they filmed me "getting ready in the morning," ticked me over from merely noticing that Film Crew were inconsiderate boors to actively taking note of it.

Their next transgression was to try to convince me it would be ever so much more photogenic if I could change my tire in the outdoors where it had just stopped drizzling instead of the heated hotel lobby. They were even willing to find me a piece of cardboard to sit on!

Courtesy of the video taken by the Front Desk Lady

Then, they didn't update the location pin where I was supposed to meet them 7km away from my hotel until I was there and asking them where they were.

Then, there was the fisherman who needed to be told to turn his music down from a good 150m away from where they were interviewing me with both a throat mic and a camera mic. (Sorry not sorry but the free noise cancelling on CapCut mobile would have been able to filter that without noticeably affecting the final product and it isn't like this is a closed Hollywood movie set.)

I refuse to believe that the music from a distant fisherman's speaker was something that couldn't be edited in post without making a noticeable difference to the end product

The wind was louder than the dude's music

Then, then, then, then.... I'd rather work to forget all the thens than I would to list them out.

One of the root causes of the existence of society is that humans are practically hardwired to offer a helping hand. If you've ever been handicapped or been in the habit of carrying awkward loads, you may have noticed that this helping hand may actually make things more difficult than if people weren't scrambling to be nice to you.

However, no matter how inconveniently unhelpful the help is or how much it pisses you off, you can't just go around yelling at people who don't know that they're the seventeenth person to try to push your wheelchair just this morning; and it's why—prior to my getting disc brakes—the first thing I always used to need to do when I left a bike shop was go round a corner and undo whatever "helpful adjustments" they'd made to my brakes.

Currently tentatively dating these to 2002

Rural Safe Electricity Usage series, of course

In the 19 years since my first self supported loaded bike tour¹—from getting off boats to lifting my bike up onto a bus's rooftop cargo rack—I've done an awful lot of looking like I need help to Chinese people whose help isn't helpful. Unlike "if you don't take your fucking hands off my wheelchair, I will bite you²," most of them have quickly come to understand the concept of "I really appreciate you wanting to help me, but if someone unfamiliar to me is taking part of the weight of an awkward load, either of us stumbling will mean that both of us get hurt."

It was when we were leaving the riverbank where they'd been dicks to the fisherman downstream from us that I noticed that trying to assist me in picking up my bike (and being asked again to please not) was inevitably followed by sweetly asking me to do something I'd already said was a bad idea.

Don't tie livestock to power poles. Don't move the earth within five meters of power poles.

Climbing on transformer boxes is dangerous and could easily result in crippling injury or death³

Using electricity to fish or hunt is a no no⁴. Don't set up private transmission networks.

And then, I started counting how many times they'd "thoughtfully" do the thing I'd already said could easily result in injuring both of us and damaging 50,000y worth of their equipment, and how many times it would be followed by asking me for a teensy little favor in return.

Would you believe I got up to 11?

In one afternoon.

After two previous days of not making the connection to the "little favor" requests that always came afterwards.

Don't plant trees or build houses under transmission lines⁵. They shall be removed without prejudice or compensation.

I'm pretty sure the "required safety line" for breaker boxes in the first part is local phrasing for a "ground line"⁶. Second part is "aluminum and steel wires are not friends"

I didn't actually lose my cool enough to snap "Stop it!" until the photogenic sunset scenes they were so insistent on needing. Because we were quite a ways farther from the hotel⁷ than we'd been the night before, I'd not only said this was going to result in me risking hypothermia, I repeatedly reminded them of how cold my fingers had been when I took my gloves off and intentionally breached their personal space to touch their faces the night before.

But, you know, just a little favor cause we just helped you with the task you keep telling us you not only don't need or want our help with but find our 'helping' you with to be an active imposition.

His jumping over the barrier to "help" me push the bike up this hill (on what I'd already said was the final take) was what finally tipped me over to snapping "Stop It!"

In plowing and planting season, please refrain from driving into power poles⁸

Then, I informed them I was going back to the hotel.

Before I left, they said that a final scene should be done of me enjoying a meal at a night market and—even though I had no idea where they got this idea for a program which they insisted should only be about my off the beaten track rural travel experiences⁹—I agreed.

For the record, other than my never being anywhere near those sorts of places when biking, we'd walked past a night market street the first night after dinner and I'd specifically answered if I wanted to check it out before going back to the hotel for more filming that I never go to these sorts of collections of nationwide chains serving things identical to other "trying to be Instagram trendy" places.

Don't cast fishing lines near power lines

Never touch electric appliances with wet hands. All electric appliances should have a ground line.

But, that was going to be dinner, and I didn't care enough one way or another to say "no."

I hadn't even had time to strip off my bike clothes so I could defrost in the shower and put on my also unsuitable for outdoors at night pair of jeans and t-shirt when I got a phone call "instead of us coming to pick you up, can you take a taxi to the night market?'

To be filmed eating food I've already said I don't especially enjoy, in an environment that I've already said doesn't interest me, while wearing the inappropriate for being outdoors at night in late October clothing that you are already aware is literally everything I have with me, when you've already let me know that this isn't the sort of program where I get to claim any reimbursements for expenses?

Um. No?

Stay far the fuck away from fallen power lines and call to report to the Power Company ASAP

The fine for stealing electricity via various methods may be low, but the legal penalties are high

And after a few rounds of letting me know how gosh darn inconvenient it would be for them to drive the 3.7km back to my hotel to come get me and how cheap a taxi would be, they decided that it wasn't actually necessary after all and I decided to let my friends in Shijiazhuang know that visiting them had been elevated from "a quick stop before I proceed south as fast as possible" to "a quick stop before I take the train back to Haikou."

Then I had a delicious bowl of hot oatmeal with peanut butter and honey for dinner.

¹ The amount of time spent on buses and in bus stations doesn't make it not a bike tour

Always treat electric appliances as if they are live and teach your children to do so as well

If someone near you is being electrocuted, immediately turn off power at the breaker box

² It never fails to astonish me how many people will attempt to push me within minutes of getting the "Thou Shalt Not Touch the 'Chair" lecture†.

† "I am in a wheelchair on this occasion because I choose to be in a wheelchair. If it's too hard to get my 'chair up a slope or a curb, I retain the ability to stand up. Touching my wheelchair without permission is equivalent to me picking your feet up and moving them. Don't Touch the Chair!"

³ Although this is a slightly different perspective than this image usually gets, it follows the standard template of two boys and a girl

Fallen over transmission poles are dangerous. Don't stack crap underneath the right of way.

Hire registered electricians to install electrical things and make sure they are installed according to code

⁴ This is the first time I've gotten a "no electric fishing" image that shows someone getting electrocuted

⁵ I know this is supposed to be a drawing of a guy laying bricks, but he really looks like a Flying Kung Fu Master

⁶ It's a little confusing cause "ground line" is used elsewhere in this set.

⁷ Which, if I'd known I wasn't going to be staying somewhere else tonight, I could have refrained from checking out, and I could have done all of today with empty bags.

Don't fly kites near power lines. Don't release things upwards¹⁰.

A little confused about the first part, but the second part is definitely "in an emergency, call the 120 Medical Services Hotline"

⁸ In addition to "No Drinking and Tractoring" being an actual slogan I've actually seen, the sadly unphotographed† sign out front of the military airbase at Dingxing a couple days back included "being breathalyzed" as one of the inspection conditions for entering the facility.

† Because it's a bloody stupid idea to stop and to take photos of even the most innocent things that happen to be near controlled facilities

⁹ And which therefore made actually likely to happen things like "going to a coach station and putting my bike on a bus" unpossible.

Using a hook connector to directly tap power off the transmission lines is extremely dangerous, don't do it

¹⁰ I think this a modernized version of "don't shoot birds who are roosting on the line" that post dates China's increasingly strict application of gun control measures.

Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 1,683 km (1,045 miles)

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